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Wednesday, December 12, 2012

The Five Levels of Attachment: Toltec Wisdom for the Modern World

Are you using knowledge, or is knowledge using you?

There are 360 degrees of possibilities surrounding you. This point – this now – is your potential. To move forward in any direction is to make a choice; you say yes to something and no to all else. This is true regardless of whether or not you are aware of the infinite possibilities in each moment….

The more attached you are to something, the more your vision is obscured and narrowed, sometimes to the point where you are convinced that there is only one way to proceed. Your attachment to a belief cuts off your ability to let go of attachments that no longer work for you, your options seem to grow and expand. But what you are really doing is increasing your perspective, as all possibilities are there all along.
We have all unwittingly made agreements about how we choose to live our lives and what we believe our personal truths are.

But what we may not realize is that each one of these agreements represents an attachment, a limiting filter on who we think we are, and what the future could hold.

We call these attachments “knowledge” without ever questioning if that knowledge is necessarily true for us.

If you are looking through life and translating it as it goes along, you will miss out on living it. Your knowledge has to become a tool that you will use to guide you through life but that can also be put aside, do not let knowledge translate everything you experience….

Level One: The Authentic Self
We are living beings regardless of our knowledge, which exists only because we exist. The Authentic Self is a name given to that living being that is the full potential of life. It is the name that describes the force that not only animates our body, but also gives life to our mind and our soul. The Authentic Self is always present, and it is only our attachment that keeps us from remembering this is who we really are.

Level two: Preference
We use knowledge as the tool by which we engage our preferences in life. At the second level of attachment, we move with the awareness of the Authentic Self and recognize our ability to invest ourselves in something the form of an attachment as we engage in the present moment. We are still able to let go of the attachment when the moment has passed. Seeing ourselves as a reflection of life in the Dream of the Planet, we attach ourselves with ease, and detachment is simply recognizing and letting go of that reflection.

Level three: Identity
We identify myself with our knowledge; we use it to see and understand the world. Identity is the grounding sense of self that allows us to have our place in the Dream of the Planet, giving us a point of reference by which we engage other people. But this identity is a mask that blurs our awareness of the Authentic Self, and attachment at this level means we identify ourselves with our knowledge and forget that it is a mask.

Level four: Internalization
Our identity, in the form of knowledge, gives us the rules and guidelines by which we live our lives. In the Toltec tradition, this is known as Domestication. This level of attachment to knowledge means our identity has become the model by which we accept ourselves. Our sense of self comes directly from our beliefs. Our will is subjugated by the need to fit in with our Personal Dream and the Dream of the Planet, and though our mask may not be in the form of our passion, we will wear whatever mask we think we need to be accepted.

Level five: Fanaticism
Our knowledge controls our every action. We hold beliefs as more important than human life. Fanaticism describes a rigid attachment to knowledge with an excessive intolerance of opposing views. Anything that contradicts or puts into question a fanatic’s beliefs is a direct threat—and they will defend the belief at any cost. Prejudice, intolerance, and violence are the instruments by which the belief is imposed onto the Dream of the Planet.

It is easier for us to attribute a power to something outside ourselves than it is for us to see that we are the power that gives things in our world life. We are the ones responsible for ourselves and our reality. We are the creators of our own dream…..The challenge I have for you is to change your agreement, to see yourself as a perfect human being, and to realize that there is no object, idea, or knowledge that you need to be complete. You are perfect because you are alive in this present moment, transforming continuously with life.

Become aware of how you confuse what you know for who you are

Gain awareness of how your attachments have created your reality

Stop creating your identity based on the opinions and judgments of others around you

Let go of the fear of what you are without your beliefs

Take back your power

Make new Agreements that are more in line with your true Authentic Self

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Book of the Week

An authentic and satisfying life awaits all of us. Torkom provides the roadmap to achieving it in this step-by-step guide to the process of actualizing our true essence, achieving mastery over our life, and conquering the challenges on the path. The book is divided into three sections as follows: Section One is titled “Self-Actualization” and is a collection of lectures Torkom gave in two seminars in October 1988 and January 1989. Section Two is titled “Self-Mastery” and is a collection of chapters taken from one intensive seminar that Torkom gave on “Self-Mastery and Leadership” on November 18th and 19th, 1989. Section Three is titled “Considerations on the Path” and is a collection of lectures and writings that develop the theme of actualization and mastery through developing willpower, learning how to question, learning the dimensions of freedom, overcoming egotism and runaway speech,and finding real peace. This is a valuable book that provides foundational guidelines to the process of becoming in our outer life what we feel we want to be in our inner life. An authentic and satisfying life awaits all of us. Torkom provides the roadmap.